George Santayana had irrational faith in reason - I have irrational faith in TV.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Vikings 1.3: The Priest

Vikings continues to provide a good, vibrant narrative of a time in history - the end of eight century AD - which we can use. Last week, we see the onset of the Viking age with Ragnar's attack on Lindisfarne in the northeast of England. Tonight, most of the important action revolves around the priest who speaks the Viking language, whom Ragnar has the good sense to take back home as his prisoner.

Ragnar also has the good sense to choose the priest when the ever-vicious Haraldson shows his "generosity" to Ragnar and his crew by allowing them just one possession each from their English plunder (a generosity he only displays at his clever wife Siggy's suggestion). Back on the Lothbrok homestead, the kids make fun of the priest's bald spot (and all these years I thought Friar Tuck just happened to be that way - actually, I realized there was something more going on when I saw Brother Cadfael), Ragnar and Lagertha invite the priest to join them in bed (he's tempted by Lagertha but says no), and then he's left in charge when Ragnar takes Lagertha on his next outing to England.

I found that a little surprising - not that the priest would do any harm to the Lothbrok kids, but wouldn't Ragnar and Lagertha be concerned that the priest would provide inadequate i.e. no protection if some villains came calling? Well, at least this move gives us the benefit of seeing Ragnar and Lagertha together on a raid over the sea, signaling that Ragnar now has sufficient confidence in his Viking success in the west to take his beloved wife along.

Ragnar has told Haraldson that the priests of Lindsfarne were as easy as "children" to subdue. The Viking party finds the same lame lack of resistance when they encounter and massacre an English sheriff and his men this time around (one guy escapes, maybe the sheriff). It's surprising, again, to see how quickly Ragnar's group prevailed over the English in equal numbers - but that's the truth of history, and, come to think of it, Robin Hood did much the same with his merry band vis-a-vis the sheriff's forces a few hundred years later.

About Me

Paul Levinson, PhD, is Professor of Communication &
Media Studies at Fordham University in New York City.His 8 nonfiction books, including The Soft Edge (1997),
Digital McLuhan (1999), Realspace (2003), Cellphone (2004), and New New Media (2009, 2nd edition 2012), have been the
subject of major articles in the New York Times, Wired, the Christian Science
Monitor, and have been translated into 12 languages. His science fiction novels include The Silk Code (1999, ebook 2012), Borrowed Tides (2001), TheConsciousness Plague (2002, 2013), The Pixel Eye (2003), The Plot To SaveSocrates (2006, ebook 2012), and Unburning Alexandria (2013).His short stories
have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, Edgar, and Sturgeon Awards.Paul Levinson appears on "The
O'Reilly Factor" (Fox News), "The CBS Evening News,"“NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” (PBS),“Nightline” (ABC), NPR, and numerous
national and international TV and radio programs. His 1972 album, Twice Upon a Rhyme, was re-issued in 2009 (CD) and 2010 (remastered vinyl). He reviews the best of
television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog, and was listed in The Chronicle of
Higher Education’s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

e-mail received from a reader:Dear Paul, I just dreamed of airships flying between raindrops. I just returned from 2042 CE, where I sold my hardcover copy of The Plot to Save Socrates for seventy million Neo-Euros, because it had your response to this e-mail from way back in 2007 scotch-taped onto the inside of the cover. A Paul Levinson collector paid top Neo-Euro, because of the authentic archaic e-mail printout from you. It turns out that not many of your e-mails from before your tenure as CEO of HBO/Cinemax and terms as United Nations Secretary General will survive that far into the future. So, please respond to this e-mail, to help found my great-grandchildren's fortune. My Will will stipulate that they must share with your great grandchidren. Thanks! Tom